I agree I'm glad I was able to experience going from 16-bit games to 32 bit and beyond that! It was so cool playing my Genesis and then getting a PS1 and being blown away by the 3D graphics.
It's because people care more about the graphics today than they did back in the day. Like if it's not PC quality, the game is shit more or less. We were spoiled when Mario went from 2D to 3D.